The companies signed a letter of intent to work on a
wireless equivalent of landline broadband connections, they said
today in a statement. The service would cover NTelos’s territory
in Virginia, West Virginia and parts of Maryland, North
Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky.

The agreement gives Dish’s co-founder and chairman, Charlie
Ergen, a way to test technology as he looks for ways to convert
his company into a wireless-data provider. Dish is seeking to
persuade Sprint Nextel Corp., the third-largest U.S. mobile-phone company, to accept a $25.5 billion takeover offer.

“We believe we can create a service that simultaneously
addresses the mobile and in-home requirements of rural
residents, with the potential to serve as a model for how we can
utilize spectrum more effectively while creating differentiated
consumer offerings,” Ergen said in the statement.